Karou lives in two worlds. In one, she’s a gifted art student studying in Prague; in the other, she collects teeth for a ram-horned chimaera. Balancing those two lives was hard enough, even before being attacked by an angel. I have to admit that I had no idea what I was getting into when I picked up Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor. The book has been out for years, and I remember there being a lot of hype a while back. But honestly, I have a really hard time keeping track of all the different series with “_____ of _____ and _____” titles. After a friend reminded me of this one’s existence, I decided to just jump into it cold, without looking anything up about the series. Once I started reading, I was pleasantly surprised!
Karou was raised by the tooth fairy…. Okay, not quite. Her guardian, Brimstone, is a satyr-like being who runs a shop where he trades wishes in exchange for human and animal teeth of all varieties. He and three other chimaera have cared for Karou since she was an infant, but she knows nothing of the world they come from beyond the walls of Brimstone’s shop. Now seventeen, Karou balances her human life as an art student with working for Brimstone. When the novel starts out, her biggest concerns are how to deal with an obnoxious ex-boyfriend and how to keep her best friend from getting suspicious when she keeps disappearing to go on teeth-procuring missions. But everything changes when she meets an angel in Marrakech. Akiva is a seraph who has come to mark the portals between Brimstone’s shop and the mortal world, so that they can all be destroyed. When he encounters a seemingly human girl working on behalf of the chimaera, his only thought is to attack. But when he gets a good look at Karou, something about her stirs up long-buried feelings.
What I found most remarkable about this book was its unusual take on angel/demon mythology. Interestingly, the concepts are mostly removed from their Judeo-Christian context. In Daughter of Smoke & Bone, the seraphim are simply a race of winged beings who seem to worship the God Stars. Rather than traditional demons, their enemies are the chimaera—a large and diverse society of hybrid beings with varied animal and human features. Each side has their own mythology, religion, and origin story. There is one fallen angel, Razgut, but he’s hardly recognizable as a traditional demon either. Broken and twisted, he’s mostly a pitiful creature with a bit of a mean streak, and so far it’s unknown exactly how and why he was cast out of seraphim society. I love the idea of taking creatures that humans recognize from their own mythology, but giving them full, rich backstories and a culture and mythology of their own.
Have you read Daughter of Smoke & Bone? Let me know what you think in the comments! If you, like me, are late to this party, you can find the book at your local retailer or purchase it from this Bookshop.org affiliate link and support both indie bookstores and The Gothic Library in the process.